In search of mutton pie.

Last week we drove to Ewyas Lacy, an old Norman settlement close to Monmouth. The reason was fairly mundane. An old friend had rhapsodised over a mutton pie he had enjoyed there; my stomach rumbled its approval, and my mind was made up. Even Meatloaf might have done ‘that’ for a mutton pie. To cut to the chase, when we got there we discovered the butcher’s had closed some time ago and even worse, the pub was shut too. There remained only the castle, which was brilliant but not as good as the mutton pie I had imagined for myself

 I’m standing in the outer bailey facing the gatehouse which controlled access into the inner bailey. Instead of, as now, empty fields, there would have been a number of timber framed buildings, stables, barns, storehouses and accommodation for visitors. In the early C13th the settlement had about 100 serfs, each given a plot of land (and no doubt mutton pie) in exchange for free labour on the Lord’s estates. By 1310 its estimated the population had reached 500 only to be savagely reduced by the Black Death thirty years later. The original settlement was called Ewyas Lacy – Ewyas meaning ‘sheep place’ and Lacy referring to the castle’s owners. By the C15th it was more commonly known as Longtown, referring to the overall shape of the settlement.

The castle was built to defend the borderlands from Welsh raiders and to protect the town of Ewyas Lacy. The first castle would have been a wooden keep on top of a man-made motte/mound,  but in the C12th Roger de Lacy replaced it with a stone castle for the princely sum of £37.

The de Lacys had come over with William the Conqueror and were rewarded with land on the Welsh borders (the Marches) and, along with other powerful barons were known as the Marcher Lords, their task to keep England safe from Welsh attacks and muscle into Wales when opportunity allowed. The name de Lacy  originated from their home in Normandy – Lassy in Calvados. 

Approaching the gatehouse from the outer bailey

And walking through the gatehouse into the inner bailey

The inner bailey as it would have been

The Keep The buttress to the left held a circular staircase. The one to the right, latrines.

The heart of the castle is the stone cylindrical keep built in the 1220s. The lower level of the keep would have been used for storage, the first floor contained the hall, and the upper storey was reserved as a private chamber for the family. Rounded keeps were seen as superior to the more common square keeps because without corners, they were stronger and easier to defend

The views from the keep are spectacular. The ridge, part of Offa's Dyke, separated England from Wales. The castle was very much in frontier country. 

Walking around the keep offers glimpses of the village,

As well as the once mighty stonework crumbling as nature does its work

And finally the inner bailey and gatehouse as seen from the keep

By 1403 the castle had fallen into disrepair but was restored by Henry IV to protect the area from the Welsh bandit, Owen Glendower in his search for mutton pie.